The Butler weekly times. (Butler, Mo.) 1881-1918, 1887-08-17


OF mile minute can be under
stood. No stop was made at Chats
worth and on and on the heavy train |
with its living freight sped through |
the darkness OF the night.
THE TREsTLE WORK ABLAzE.
Three miles east of Chatsworth is
a little slough and where herailroad
track crosses dry run about ten
feet deep aud fifteen wide. Over
this was stretched an ordinary wood
en- trestle bridgr, and as the excur-
sion train came laundering down on
it, what was the horror of the
engineer on the front engine
when he saw that this bridge was
afre. Right up before his eyes
leaped the bright flames and the next
instant he was among them. There
was no chance to stop. Had there
been warning, it would have taken
half mile to stop that onrushing
mass of wood, iron and human life,
and the train was within one hundred
yards of the red messengers of death
before they flashed their fatal signals
into the engineers face. But he
passed over in safety, the first engine
keeping the rails. As it went over
the bridge fell beneath it, and it
could only have been the terrible
speed of the train which saved the
lives of the engineer and his FIRE
man.
! But the next engine went down,
and instantly the deed of death was
done. Car smashed into car, seats
piled one on top of another, and in
the twinkling of an eye nearly one
hundred persons found instant deatl
and fifty more were so hurt thai
they could not live. As fol
} the wounded, they were everywhere
AN AWFUL SCENE OF HORROR.
Only the sleeping coaches escaped
, and as the startled and half-dresset
, passengers came tumbling out o
] them they found such scene o
q death as is rarely witnessed, and sue
! work to do that it seemed as j
human hands were utterly incapable
o It lacked but five minutes of mic
night.
8 Down in the ditch lay the secon
engine, Engineer McClintock dea
$ and Fireman Applegate badly il
d jured. On top were piled the thre
" baggage cars, one on top of anothe
like child's card house after he ha
swept it with his hand. Then can
-, the six day coaches-they were tel
scoped as cars never was before, al
y three of them were pressed into ju
:. space enough for one. The seco1
car had mounted off it's truck
:: crashed through the car ahead of
- crushing the woodwork aside Ii
> tinder, and lay there resting on t
tops of the seats, while every p'
49, senger in the front car was lyi
-. - dead and dying underneath. @
= of the car but four people ca
alive.
..n On top of the second car lay
-. third, and although the latter I
~. not cover its bearer as completely
:, the one beneath, it's bottom '
, smeared with the blood of its victil
The other three cars were not
=, badly crushed, but they were bro
and twisted in every conceiva
way, and every crushed timber
beam represented crushed hu1
frame and broken bone.
ons
rest SHRIEKS AND GROANS.
A Instantly the air was filed I
een the cries of the wounded and
orts shrieks of those about to die.
groans of men, the screams of
ora women united to make com
BAD sound, and above all could be b
very the agonizing cries Of little chill
ken as in some instances they lay pil
peo- beside their dead parents.
eavy And there was another ter